**** Dancing in the vacuum
The
plot of this book certainly doesn’t lack originality, as it attempts to narrate
dance, which is already difficult, but above all to do it in a science fiction
context. The novel tells the story of Shara, a talented dancer who will never
become famous because of her physical peculiarities (she doesn’t have a minute
body) and who then invents a new type of dance in zero gravity: a star dance.
And
in some ways the attempt is also quite good. In the scenes in which the
narrator, the cameraman (and ex-dancer) Charlie, describes the choreography of
Shara, for example, one almost has the impression of seeing her dance through
the filming. The prose of the author (or rather, of the authors, because
Robinson’s wife is also listed as author) is evocative and engaging here. The
very fact of picking up a science fiction book and finding yourself reading
about dance is strange, but in a good way. As long as the science fiction
aspect remains in the background, actually, reading is pleasant and you are
curious to find out what happens next.
Problems
arise when science fiction comes up and shatters all the poetry.
Unfortunately,
the novel suffers from being written over forty years ago. It isn’t just a
problem of technological anachronisms, which as always are inevitable in books
that try to imagine the future. In fact, there are numerous scientific
inaccuracies. Some are probably due to the fact that at that time there was
little knowledge on the effects on the human body of exposure to microgravity
for long periods, but for others one cannot appeal to such an excuse, because
they are relatively simple concepts of physics. I don’t know if these last
mistakes are due to artistic licences by the authors or if they are the result
of poor research. The problem is that some essential turning points of the plot
are based on some of these inaccuracies and consequently the plot itself ends
up losing credibility.
However,
this is a pleasant reading that I decided to judge positively precisely because
of its originality.
Stardance of Amazon.
No comments:
Post a Comment